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Water Infrastructure Bill

A note from Don: – I have talked about the U.S. water supply and treatment infrastructure before. In short…it is in trouble.

Our water treatment infrastructure is old and in serious disrepair, so say the experts.

And, it appears they are not just quite sure what to do about it. Oh, they know what needs to be done, but the expense has been the primary stumbling block.

As usual it takes a crisis, affecting consumers in a very serious way, to cause people, including politicians to shout for action.

I am just a guy interested in safe, clean drinking water for all consumers. My passion and cause is to teach and show people that filtering their drinking water, with a quality water filter, is the easiest, most effective way to safe guard our families from water borne contaminants.

Since I have referred to the aging water infrastructure in the past, when I saw this article I thought I would pass it along to my readers, to both show the facts and that something just might be done.

Hopefully, something will be done to rectify this problem before another water contamination crisis or a broken water supply and treatment plant and more people injured.

Here is the article.

“With senators in a standoff over annual spending bills, the chamber is expected as soon as Wednesday to take up a bipartisan, $9 billion measure that would authorize spending on the nation’s water infrastructure. The bill includes $280 million to address the crisis over contaminated drinking water in Flint, Mich., as well as funding to combat the pollution runoff that has fed the vast bloom of algae in the waterways of southeastern Florida.

The water bill, introduced by Senators Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, and James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, is a rare sign of agreement between one of the most liberal and one of the most conservative members of Congress. It has wide bipartisan support, and staff members expect it to receive more than 80 votes.

However, the prospects for combining the bill with a more modest $5 billion House measure, which contains none of the Flint provisions, remain uncertain.”

The Water Resources Development Act, which comes around every two years, does not appropriate new taxpayer dollars for spending. Rather, it targets and maps out projects to be addressed when lawmakers appropriate money in the future. A big part of the bill — roughly $5 billion — is intended for the upkeep of ports, dams, locks, levies and canals managed by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Staff members working on the bill have likened its importance to that of highway infrastructure bills. But senators added the funding package to help the residents of Flint and other communities afflicted by tainted water. The extra money is intended to help those communities make improvements, like installing new pipes and lead-monitoring systems.”